Egyptian military at top of photo cajole protesters in Tahrir Square. (photo: Al Jazeera-English)

Volunteers have been cleaning up Cairo’s Tahrir Square all weekend as the country’s Supreme Council of the Armed Services focused on the next steps in the reform process. Protesters remain worried about backsliding since so many issues remain in the air and unresolved. The military has been trying to move protesters out of the square, saying they are trying to restore normalcy; it’s reported this morning that the Supreme Council will move to ban protests and strikes while they continue to work on reform.

Egyptian pro-democracy activist Wael Ghonim says the country’s new military rulers have promised him that a referendum will be held on a revised constitution in two months.

Ghonim and blogger Amr Salama posted a note on their website saying they secured the commitment in talks with the military council that took control of Egypt from President Hosni Mubarak when he resigned last Friday. They described Sunday’s meeting as encouraging.

Ghonim, a Google executive, and other cyber activists played a key role in organizing 18 days of nationwide anti-government protests that forced Mr. Mubarak to step down and hand power to the military after 30 years in power.

The activists say the military council told them that a newly-appointed committee will finish drafting constitutional amendments in 10 days and seek public approval for the new charter in a national referendum in two months. Egypt’s military rulers have not confirmed the timelines.”>met with the Supreme Council of the Armed Services

The Supreme Council had already disbanded the parliament and suspended the constitution over the weekend as part of the first steps towards reform.

The Egyptian stock exchange remains closed due to the perception of instability. It was expected that the exchange would re-open this Wednesday, but this now appears to be overly optimistic.

Many Egyptians are angry at the thefts from and damage to the Egyptian Museum. Some pieces have been recovered from the museum’s gardens, but a number of key pieces are still missing. Eighteen pieces are believed to be in the country; Egyptology expert Basaam Al Shama says they likely will not be sold through any public venue as they are well catalogued. He also says it appears the thieves knew what they were looking for as the missing pieces were from a single Egyptian dynasty.

35 Responses
to “Monday Morning-After: Egypt’s Military Pushing Protesters out of Tahrir, Clean-up under Way”

It sounds like the beginning of some form of martial law..honestly, I’m still very suspicious that Suleimanco are still in control. The army leaders and their cronies are feeling the power of the purse threat, and they don’t like it. If they think they can just make people go home and be good little slave citizens, they are probably going to find they have the real revolution on their hands. JMHO

Protesters remain worried about backsliding since so many issues remain in the air and unresolved. The military has been trying to move protesters out of the square, saying they are trying to restore normalcy; it’s reported this morning that the Supreme Council will move to ban protests and strikes while they continue to work on reform.

As the dust settles and there’s a return to “normalcy” time will blur the ink the “agreement” was written with. Other than small changes in the power structure, the military will still call the shots. There will be “free” elections, and eventually power will corrupt those the people choose to represent them. It won’t take long. In 2008 we voted for Hope and Change. At this point 2 years on, hope is all but lost, and little changed. Wall Street and Washington still sit at the banquet, the people got a few more crumbs, shared sacrifice. And so it goes.

Meanwhile, CIA tool the Swedish PM is obsessed with “Public Enemy Number One.”

Can Julian Assange count on a fair trial in Sweden? Not if you believe the nation’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who insisted over the weekend that Assange is “public enemy number one” for the nation.

This is an incredible claim for the prime minister to make, particularly when Swedish officials haven’t even formally charged the WikiLeaks founder with a single offence yet.

I tend to think Lambert at Correntewire (whose reporting on Egypt has been phenomenal) has the right idea:
“…the talking point you see a lot on the progressive blogs, who tend to call the Egyptian revolution a “military coup,” which has the handy side effect of removing the agency of the Egyptian people. Well, having the military take over was, in fact, a key demand of the protesters. If there is an institution in Egypt that can manage the transition, it’s the military.”
From Ian Welsh:
“Endgame here is probably an Attaturk Turkish style democracy, where the military acts as the final guarantor. Note also that the military has a lot of business interests in Egypt, and were enraged by Mubarak’s ne0liberal policies, like selling off banks, which damaged them significantly.
Congratulations to the protestors, who seem to have been organized in large part by Egyptian labor. This is a victory, however it turns out in the longer run.”http://www.ianwelsh.net/

It’s the combination of traditional labor actions and the use of social media which worked in Egypt. Obviously labor’s strikes and protests haven’t been enough if they’ve been at it for a decade; the engagement of the educated, middle and professional classes through the use of social media may have helped labor get the leverage they needed in the way of a tipping point.

Social media on its own won’t do the trick, though, as we’ve seen in Iran. Only fully-engaged cross-sections of society worked to overcome inertia.

To be sure, it’s ‘all of the above,’ including the domino effect. But I think that ongoing effectiveness will rely significantly on organization, and there the previous workers movements become impt. Not to mention their real economic interests, as opposed to ideology of younguns.

We got a good lesson on the effectiveness of shutting down internet communication last week. Egypt managed to pull the kill switch for what, two days, before economic pressure made them turn it back on?

One of the key factors that went unreported by media is that Egypt had a cellphone explosion in 2009, where the overall installed base of cellphones increased by 44% or so. This allowed the labor movement to become connected with the educated, middle and professional classes which already had cellphones. Until the folks who knew how to work media and coordinate at a meta-scale were engaged, the more localized labor protests were not effective.

We see the same thing here in the U.S.; that’s why the White House has been able to walk all over labor. Labor still doesn’t know how to work media and coordinate effort for greater effect and until they are more fully engaged with folks who do, they won’t be able to stop the damage. Seems a fricking shame that they can’t outdo a White House which seems incapable of managing media outreach.

The scenario in this country is very different than in Egypt. The internet etc., is what keeps the youth occupied with everything other than what is happening politically, so I doubt they would cut it off here…other than selectively cutting off political blogs or something like that..instead, they would probably continue to demonize anyone or anything that challenges the status quo.

Anonymous also just gave us a good example what freelance patriots can do when the corporate/government goons want to fuck with us.

You have to understand the mindset- they are playing for keeps. The vast majority of the wealth isn’t enough. They want it all. Anything that gets in their way must be destroyed. . . . And they are well financed, have a strong infrastructure, a sympathetic media, and entire organizations dedicated to running cover for them . . . .

Thanks for sharing that, hadn’t seen it yet. Wonder where FDL is in that graphic? ;-)

Note the importance, though, to both the Egyptian and Iranian network graphics of key connectors. The half-dozen or so in Egypt (largest bubbles in the center) are folks who were on the bubble between English and Arabic language usage. The diagram linked to Iran doesn’t make this distinction; I am wondering if this is a critical factor, an ability to convey to the west what’s going on inside the country and convey back to internal constituency what the west is saying in response.

But then there’s also the leverage that diplomatic relationships had as well in Egypt, which are not at all the same in Iran. We’ve cut off so many links that the U.S. has to use less effective second-degree leverage on Iran.

As I learned late last Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful Rightwing lobbying group in the country, was revealed to have been working with their law firm and a number of private cyber security and intelligence firms to target progressive organizations, journalists and citizens who they felt were in opposition to their political activism, tactics and points of view.

As Thursday’s show continued, I received confirmation that I, personally, along with members of my family, had been highlighted in Themis’ proposed hit job…

I think that the movement evolved over the eighteen days, and that the basic ideas of freedom and democracy starting taking hold among different layers of the populace.

The final straw that brought out the ‘well-dressed’ as some were reported as calling them on AJE, was the Mubarak’s betrayal of the rumor he’d be stepping down on Feb.10. The understanding that they had to see it all through gave them immense courage throughout the nation to resist the regime.

Right! Now the hard part, real change. They should take pause from our phony Bait and switch Preznit and his fraudulent Change and Hope routine. It’s looking like they’re Rebellion will be resisted in depth. Mubaracks’ cronies still hold all the power . Just decapitating this massive corrupt establishment, as we have found out doesn’t work.

Which is no doubt why some of the protesters aren’t willing to give up Tahrir Square. I hope a way can be found to keep pressure on them. Surely our State department even now is working on machinations to keep the corrupt torturers in charge. At least in charge of all of the documents and evidence that leads back to Cheney, Rummy, Bush, Obama and Holder.

Yep. I’m hoping somebody comes forward or at least that there is an Egyptian Bradley Manning somewhere, willing to throw away a career and possibly freedom for doing what it’s undeniably the right and moral thing to do.

Unfortunately a real revolution requires breaking some eggs as they say. I’m not saying a purge where people are taken out and shot is the answer but, leaving the very people that the Dictator has placed at every level of authority in power isn’t change. How you get these creatures out, without chaos like happened in Iraq, is another thing all together? My guess is Mubarack is still pulling the strings. They need to grab him and put him under arrest and isolated away from his gang or they will end up fighting his rear guard, filled with political roadside bombs. He didn’t stay in power for 30 yrs. because he was an idiot. The people around him aren’t going to give up there posts so easily in a society without law. The Civil War could be looming right ahead, this isn’t anywhere near finished no matter what our Corp. mass media would have us believe.

That’s certainly the case. Hence your statement, “it’s reported this morning that the Supreme Council will move to ban protests and strikes while they continue to work on reform,” dryly marks the turn of the Egyptian situation towards army-led suppression.

Since when has military rule led to a progressive outcome? There should be immediate elections and a turn to civilian rule. Instead, the Egyptian Army has retained Mubarak’s cabinet, in a sign that nothing really is meant to change. Meanwhile, they want the forces of change to stand down.

No strikes? They wish. Joel Beinin, author of The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt (PDF), quotes Sarah Leah Whitson, the Director, Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch as describing the strike wave to hit Egypt in recent years (an average of 194 strikes and sit-ins per year from 2004 through 2008) “the largest social movement Egypt has witnessed in more than half a century.”

According to UK Guardian:

But others were disturbed by the army’s failure to agree to a civilian-led interim government as well as to end the 30-year state of emergency and the release of political prisoners.

“We need heavy participation by the civilians,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, the former nuclear inspector who has become an opposition spokesman. “It cannot be the army running the show.”

Mahmoud Nassar, one of the organisers behind the Tahrir Square protests, said the demonstrations would go on. “The revolution is continuing. Its demands have not been met yet,” he said. “The sit-in and protests are in constant activity until the demands are met. All are invited to join.”….

“There is no change in the form, method or process of work. Matters are completely stable,” said the prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq. “Our main concern now as a cabinet is security. We need to bring back a sense of security to the Egyptian citizen.”

The Egyptian revolutionary movement just did something in three weeks that no one thought possible – and they are well aware of both the costs (including 300 dead colleagues) and the distance still to go. Rather than critique their choices, I’m for watching and learning from them as they make their next moves.

The protesters know the way back to the Square. If the Army stalemates them it will mean further disruption for Egypt, and if their concern is economic the situation will reveal itself much as it did with the closing of the internet, only by means of people power instead of computerese. It might have to be that way since the old guard apparently has a hard time convincing themselves they don’t really have the upper hand. But perhaps the lesson has been learned; I pray so.

The sensitivity of the populace has been aroused. They won’t take kindly to being prevented from protesting when they know that has been the only way forward. Nobody’s just sitting back at this point. A swift return to normalcy means the inclusion of the citizenry in whatever form of governance can be presented right now. It’s encouraging that the representatives of the protesters have a positive outlook on the talks so far. That must continue.

Yes, thanks; I think the relationship of the Egyptian military to the populace is something Americans have a tough time wrapping their heads around, primarily because we haven’t had to deal with a toxic body like the Egyptian interior ministry which was far more powerful and corrupt than the military. This dynamic is a critical differentiation.

Ian Welsh’s assessment of the likelihood of an Attaturk-like military backstop to assure democracy could be realistic, more so than in any of the rest of the pan-Arab countries.